Emily Chung, COL ’27, Bridgeport, PA
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in women worldwide. Mortality can be attributed mainly to tumor recurrences, which arise from residual tumor cells (RTCs) that manage to survive primary treatments. It is hypothesized that RTCs enter a dormant state from which they can spontaneously recur as tumors after an unknown latent period. With no treatments or therapies currently available to target dormant disease, it is critical to better understand how RTCs persist in a quiescent state.
This summer, supported by Career Services, I had the privilege of working as a research intern at the Chodosh Lab, a laboratory at the Perelman School of Medicine interested in investigating the mechanisms underlying stages of breast cancer development and progression.
I first joined the Chodosh Lab in the summer of 2024 as a mentee in the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program (PURM). Under the mentorship of PhD candidate Sarah Acolatse, our project initially sought to identify gene candidates associated with the dormant stage of breast cancer. Working in vitro, we utilized CRISPR to knock down our genes of interest in cancer cells derived from our genetically engineered mouse model. By observing the viable cell count of the lines during the stages of tumor progression, we were able to narrow down our list of gene candidates to those that exhibited a clear effect on survival in the dormant stage.
These genes would come to be the focus of our research this summer. To recapitulate the phenotype observed in vitro, we observed how tumors generated from our knockout cell lines progressed and entered dormancy in vivo. Our experiments involved harvesting these tumors at designated time points and preserving them for downstream histological and DNA sequencing analyses. Through this stage of our project, I was able to learn new techniques such as mouse handling and restraint, immunofluorescence staining and imaging, stereo microscopy, and genomic DNA isolation of tissues.
Beyond my wet-lab experience, I built meaningful connections with lab members and fellow undergraduate research interns. Lab meetings, outings, and small group lunches were amazing opportunities for me to learn about other approaches the lab was using to study breast cancer dormancy. Engagement with the lab broadened my perspective of the field and helped illuminate other techniques that may be applicable to our project in the future.
As I reflect on this summer, I am endlessly grateful for my mentor and the members of the Chodosh Lab. Through this experience, I was able to gain further insight into how results from in vivo and in vitro experiments can complement each other to generate compelling arguments. Moreover, I was able to refine my techniques and perform them with greater confidence. The Chodosh Lab has truly been an invaluable experience for my scientific growth, and I am enthusiastic to continue contributing to the lab’s work this fall.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2025 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
